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Omanappenne is magical, in one word! The music part that is, I could not make much sense of the lyrics, the Malayalam part at least. Rahman crafts a dream sequence effect with the arrangement, something he had done in the past in Kangalal Kaidhusei. And the faint naadaswaram strains playing in the background off and on are just brilliant.The only thing that could have been done without is the processing of the voices of Benny Dayal and Kalyani Menon. The part that goes “Nee Pogum Vazhiyil..” sounds especially annoying owing to the effect. Devan and Chinmayi step in with the bouncy Anbil Avan which again sees South Indian percussion like thavil and mridangam playing on in between the electronic-dominated instrumentation. The highlight of the song is the fusion of Mendelssohn’s Wedding March and the South Indian Hindu Wedding song, indicative of the Hindu-Christian setting that Simbu and Trisha play in the movie.
The title track is a very rich song with soulful rendering from Karthik on a simple base of guitars, light strings on the back ground and minimal fillers. The song uses minor scales to great effect moving in and out of the same beautifully and the tune imperceptibly drifts into a 6 beat cycle and back (to the 8 beat cycle) towards the end all defining the feel of this song which is satisfying. Hosanna is something that has been reviewed in the past, and I don’t have much to add to that now, except that a superior lineup of the other songs has brought down the value of the song a bit! Nevertheless the song is pretty engaging, Vijay Prakash, Suzanne and Blaaze doing their parts well. Kannukkul starts off with an absolutely addictive hook on strings (which I have been playing on and on for the past 15 minutes!) and then unfolds into a proper dance floor-friendly track, sung well by Naresh Iyer.
Things move on in such top notch fashion until Mannippaaya. The arrangement is spot on even here, Rahman making no mistake. However the tune of the song is what I couldn’t get a hold of. It seemed to go through quite a few complex nuances to be appealing to the lay ear. Shreya Ghoshal and Rahman do a fab job of the vocals, but I somehow could not assimilate the song that well. One of the few rare occasions where Rahman does not sing the best song of his album. But all that stands forgotten come Aaromale. WHAT A SONG! This is one of those songs that would make a Malayali music fan envious of the fact that Rahman isn’t into Malayalam music, and make bands like Avial thank their stars that Rahman isn’t into a lot of this kind of music, coz he would definitely be giving them a run for their money! The kind of fusion that Rahman presents in Aaromale is at an entirely different level altogether, there is rock, there is folk, and the occasional classical snippets, all melded together in a way only the man can. And Alphonse, what a fantastic job he has done on the vocals! In fact he sounded totally different from the way he usually does so I had difficulty believing it was indeed Alphonse. And the kind of octave range he displays in the song makes one wonder what the hell he was doing all this while, especially when he had such immense opportunities, having composed so many Malayalam songs himself.
To sum up, it is refreshing to hear a set of totally new tunes from a Gautam Menon flick. Rahman has started off his 2010 campaign in style. And in Aaromale, he has once again shown why he is a league apart from other music directors of his time.
Music Aloud rating: 8.5/10
Recommended tracks: In fact we would love to recommend almost the entire album, but for the want of listing three, we recommend Aaromale, Kannukkul and Vinnai Thaandi Varuvaaya.

Yes Raja…well said…I once liked Harris…He is just a commerical…I hope his name should have never come while talking about our musical genius…Harris’ stuffs are just repetitive..and are just instant hits…you won’t like it after three months max…Rahman’s are always distant hits….we might not like it for the first time..but as we hear on and on we just get addicted to his magic…

I am also an ardent ARR fan. But I dont know why ARR sort of took hints from “Wish you were here” for the “Aaromale” song. The whole song’s backbone is in the guitar chords. May be he gave credit for that. In fact he did give credit to the “Chaiyya Chaiiya” song to the Sufi folk song “Tere ishq nachaya kar Thaiyya” in some interview. May be he should make it known that he was inspired by Pink Floyd for this song..

As mentioned earlier in my review, ARR is a magician who will bring everyone in his control with his slow poison. The BGM is world class.. When the film begins most of the recent films take off with bang kind of music or noisy instrumentals. Has anyone seen the title music to be so haunting and mysterious as VTV in recent time?? Gautam has justified the music genius with his visuals. Gautam menon plz stick to the music master for more magic instead of repetetive stuffs from harris who is fooling the tamil audience in absence of ARR with bits taken from english albums like allrise, backstreet boys, blues and has even stolen the WWE DX intro music for his ADIYE KOLLUDHE intro rock beat.

Been listening to this album recently….. its mind boggling! There is no song which I didn’t like… all are good in patches and some are extraordinary. ‘Aramale..’ is one of them ..Can’t remember listening to any tamil movie song (for that matter any indian movie song) like that before. I enjoy listening to it.

Almost everything abt dis album is already mentioned clearly…
but one thing i would like to say is…, “vtv is not like the usual repeated stuffs given by harris”..,
its an absolutely fresh music that takes u to out of the world!!!!
as everyone said, “the more u hear more u get addicted” its damn 100% true especially on rahman’s tunes!! u’ll just start floating in the tunes of mannipaaya, aaromale!!!
i feel this album will be the best of arr in tamil!!! all the 7 songs strikes in this particular album!!
i was really treated upto my expectations!!
thank you rahman sir!!!!!!!!!!

The song “Aaromale” is rocking. I never thought Alphonse has such a wonderful voice to sing rock songs. I’m loving it. Hats off to ARR for recognizing Malayalam is perfect for rock song. I expect more from you both ARR & Alphose.

Saw the VTV movie. If songs are great on the album, the background music takes the movie to a different level. Gautham made a great movie and Rahman made it a class. The background music is just unbelievable. Talking of Aaromale, the first time the one-liner is played is when Simbu declares his love to Trisha. The effect of the one-liner of Aaramale was just brilliant. Only Rahman can make a good movie great!

I bought the copy of the audio on 16/01…. and for me to move on to a different sound track i guess i would’ve to wait until AR’s next work :)!! Coz with concept of Plagiarism so wide… only AR stands alone with his unqiueness to blend music from different parts of world with our music and create amazing sound tracks….!! And the talks of aaromale being copied/inspired is completely NOT TRUE.. coz if you listen to Dave Matthew’s Band for about first 20sec one might say its copied or for that matter from any other band(Aviyal).. its only a particular pattern of blues rythmn played in a guitar..and many use the same pattern which can’t be termed as copied!! VTV is one of AR’s best.. and many more to come!

Hey vineeth…. No AVIAL or KUVIAL inspirations… U had dropped ur opinion as soon as u heard it once. Dont do that with rahman.. do with copy cats like harris and yuvan. As govind said., his songs r slow poison and at one stage u get addicted to the song which u dont like in first instance. In 1997 when i heard minsara kanavu i had the same feelings like i had with vinnaithandi varuvaya. I even thought minsara kanavu was not upto the mark with the 1st time hearing. But what happened later was history. It went on to make waves and it even yield national award for best music. I too become mad of the album and was addicted to “thanga thaamarai magale” and “vennilave”. No wonder this VTV makes the same waves. Sure…alphones will receive a national award and many awards for best male voice of 2010. MARK MY WORDS GUYS..

Guys, I have a doubt with the song “Aaromale”. The song is fantastic, let me say first. But I think Rahman got inspired (is it a copy; in a broad sense?) from our rock band “Aviyal”. When I heard the music, the first thought came to my mind is Aviyal.

nice work and it is not that easy to fullfill the everybody’s expectation with in single album…..though rahman has done it beautifully……really one can be addicted with rapid listenings………thanks for the work sir……

Good review man. I think you should have heard the album many times before reviewing it as with the first hearing you can’t get any opinion about the album. Mr.dude, don’t comment just for the sake of commenting. NO ONE CAN MAKE MALAYALAM SONG PROUD LIKE RAHMAN. Aaromale is the one song which will answer all gautam-harris hits and it will beat everything for its uniqueness and amazing composition. Anbil avan and kannukul kannai are two songs which could have been better but still the arrangements and intro music of both songs are wonderful. In omana penne song, the opening line ” aaha adada ” is enough to drive us crazy. The same mesmarizing effect is felt in the first line “yen idhayam udaithai”of hozanna. Overall the album is welcome change in tamil music industry instead of repetitive stuffs from harris which some how become hits.

Nice review – VIP. Finally gotta copy from stores! Just what AR said during the audio launch.. the music is quite quirky. Completely offbeat from the regular… I don’t think anyone else can compose aaromale the way AR has done.. I love the lyrics of mannipaaya. AR keeps re-defining music again and again.. Beautiful album..!! 🙂

@Dude: You may go through my review of Blue to understand that I do not blindly patronize whatever Rahman composes, however huge a fan of his I am. And I felt Aaromale to be a great song coz of the level of mallu folk-rock fusion that he has displayed in the song. May be you do not find that to your taste. 🙂 Of course it is different from the normal Malayalam songs. I was talking purely from the above-said angle. And in those terms it is a definitely superior song IMO, when compared to songs of bands like Avial who dabble in similar genre.

The album gives me a headache, and whatever arr churns out pol goes gaga over it.. If he coughs next time and records that so called fans will praise it as song of the millenium.. Aaromale is an assault to Malayalam language.. Gosh.. Where’s the arr who gave us roja, Bombay etc

Nice review…
I thought Mannippaaya was an AMAZING song…the melody and tune is very unique. The piano and Shreya Ghoshal’s voice worked very well together. A.R Rahman’s singing could have been better (such as his pronunciation of Tamil words), but overall, the song was stunning.
I would give this album a 9.5/10. Simply AMAZING!